1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a pharmaceutical composition for preventing or treating inflammatory bowel diseases, and more particularly, to a pharmaceutical composition comprising a mixture of extracts of Stemonae Radix, Asparagus Tuber, Scutellariae Radix, Schisandrae Fructus, Rehmanniae Radix Preparata, Armeniacae Semen, and Moutan Cortex Radicis, which can prevent the development of inflammatory bowel diseases due to cigarette smoke, a method for preventing or treating inflammatory bowel diseases using the composition, a method for inhibiting overexpression of inflammatory cytokines using the composition, and a food composition comprising a mixture of extracts of Stemonae Radix, Asparagus Tuber, Scutellariae Radix, Schisandrae Fructus, Rehmanniae Radix Preparata, Armeniacae Semen, and Moutan Cortex Radicis, which can prevent or ameliorate the development of inflammatory bowel diseases due to cigarette smoke.
2. Description of the Related Art
As is well known in the art, inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), which generally begin to develop in adolescent years, cause chronic inflammation in the gastrointestinal tract and are accompanied by symptoms such as abdominal pain, fever, diarrhea, and melena. Inflammatory bowel diseases are generally divided into two types: ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn's disease (CD). Ulcerative colitis is a type of diffuse nonspecific inflammation of an unknown cause occurring in the colon, which mostly invades mucous membranes, frequently causes decay or ulcers and is accompanied by various systemic symptoms including bloody diarrhea, whereas Crohn's disease is a type of granulomatous inflammation of an unknown cause that develops ulcer, fibrosis, stenosis, and lesions in the entire digestive system from mouth to anus, and is accompanied by systemic symptoms such as abdominal pain, chronic diarrhea, fever, and malnutrition.
Although the exact cause of inflammatory bowel diseases has not been identified, allegedly they appear to occur due to a disorder in immune functions, in which factors such as innate immunity, production of cytokines, activation of CD4, etc., are known to be involved. In particular, cytokines are known to play an important role therein, and significantly increased levels of tumor necrosis cytokine (TNF-α), interleukin (IL)-1, IL-6, and IL-8 were observed in inflammatory lesions of patients with ulcerative colitis or Crohn's disease.
Examples of drugs used for treating inflammatory bowel diseases include steroid immunosuppressive agents, 5-aminosalicylic acid (5-ASA)-based drugs that block the production of prostaglandins (e.g., sulfasalazine), mesalazine, etc. However, they have little therapeutic effects and also cause serious side effects such as headaches, rashes, liver diseases, leucopenia, male infertility, etc., thus limiting the use of these drugs.
In this regard, the development of a therapeutic drug for treating the inflammatory bowel diseases without side effects will be very useful for safely and effectively treating patients with the diseases, but the development of the therapeutic drug has not yet been accomplished.